An Open Letter to a Developer

16 Oct

Dear Ryan Pedram,

Hi, my name is Rebekah and I live down the block from the luxury condominiums you are currently constructing. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my street. I have lived on this block for over 10 years now. Even still, even with all these young kids from where ever they are coming from moving into Brooklyn in droves every month and saying they are “from” here, I don’t think I can actually call myself a New Yorker. It never feels as though I have been here quite long enough to call this city my own without feeling like an impostor. Even still, I love my block and it is more my home than probably anywhere else. Despite what people say about the anonymity and lack of community here in New York, I know my neighbors if not by name then certainly by face. I wave at them and chat with them when I go about my day and they notice when I leave on some adventure or other for an extended period of time; they notice when they haven’t seen me running in a while; they just notice. Well, those who are left do, anyway. See, my block has changed quite a bit in the past few years. It seems like every few months one of those familiar faces is forced to sell their property under the pressure of constantly rising property taxes and in response to the threats made by developers like you.

Now listen, I am not going to sit here and pretend like my arrival over 10 years ago wasn’t a canary in the mine shaft to some of the people who have lived here for decades, generations, even. When young, white kids start moving in, you know shit is about to change. I did my best to respect the place I was moving to, the neighborhood that existed before my arrival. I never once acted, like so many newcomers do, as though I “discovered” something. Talk about some language reminiscent of colonialism, ya know? I know now that my young, privileged face read as an upcoming rent hike to those that lived here then. Like the beginning of the end. Like gentrification (which it was). To those people, I apologize. Seriously. I know it doesn’t make it better but I am truly sorry. Even with what followed: all the new faces, the new bars, the coffee shops, the thrift stores, the bike shops, the bike shops, the bike shops — all the trappings of Hipster New York that have made Brooklyn a brand and paved the way for a Banana Republic to open on Fulton Mall (like, what?!) — this neighborhood has, in many ways, remained itself: low key and unassuming. A lot of the people on my block have managed to hold on.

But now the new New York that has been plaguing neighborhoods all over the city, but most notably Brooklyn, has arrived here. (Thank you for that, Bloomberg.) And you are responsible for the building currently going up on my block. This past spring and summer, men in suits descended on my street, trying to buy up whatever buildings and lots they could. A house that had gone down during Sandy, one which was never cleared away, suddenly looked like dollar signs. Buildings with residents — houses where people lived — were condemned by the city and those people forced out to look for new housing in a place where rent prices seem to climb by the second. Then those houses were leveled. And then silence. Until this past week.

This week has been horrible. I, like many people I know, live an off-schedule. I am a bartender and a writer. I keep odd hours and I work from the table in my (usually relatively quiet) kitchen. I understand that I cannot expect the world to kowtow to my abnormality. But the construction has made my home absolutely uninhabitable. Noise I can handle. I live in New York and share this space with millions of people and I understand what that entails. If I wanted pitch black nights with stars and crickets and to be awoken by birds in the morning, I would move to the country. But Mr. Pedram, everything is shaking. The work your contractors are doing up the block, which, by the way, they said they would be done with by 6pm on Tuesday when I first spoke with them (it is currently Friday at noon), is causing things to fall off my refrigerator, my coffee to dance across the table, my cats to cower, fur standing straight up, under the sofa for hours. When I called you on the phone just now you said that the Department of Buildings had been called to the site 2 dozen times and that this portion of the work would be completed in 45 minutes. As if the fact that you aren’t breaking any of their bullshit regulations should offer me some solace. I mean, I know this is crazy but how about you offer us some compensation? I am paying rent on a space I cannot be in. You stand to make millions and millions of dollars. Do the math.

I am not going to act as though my experience has been any different from, worse than even, the hundreds of thousands, hell, millions of New Yorkers who have watched as their neighborhoods become unrecognizable, as the homes they’ve rented for years become unaffordable, as the mom-and-pop shops they have frequented close and make way for banks and pharmacies, banks and pharmacies, more banks and more pharmacies. And I know, it is a lot worse for other people. My roommates and I are still able to afford our apartment, for now. And I am so incredibly thankful for that. But when those starry-eyed newcomers with their strollers hogging the sidewalks, their cars taking our parking spaces, their money closing our neighborhood businesses arrive, how long do the rest of us have? They will have “discovered” this neighborhood that existed for so long before them and before me and it will start to look like everywhere else.

I know that it is all money to you. But just for a second, can you acknowledge that people live here? More than that, even. Acknowledge that people have lives here. Lives that they have worked hard to establish. Lives that deserve better than apartments that shake because you need to make way for the new hip neighborhood. Because after you do that, after you throw up this shottily-constructed building that, if the other new construction in this neighborhood is any indication, will begin falling apart within 3 years, you will move onto the next thing, pockets lined with cash. And those of us who live here now, probably won’t be able to afford it anymore. And where do we go? Where do any of us go? Where do all of the people — in Crown Heights, Long Island City, Harlem, East New York, Astoria, Mott Haven — go? And how much longer can this really go on? How many more newcomers with money can there be?

I’m sure you don’t have the answers any more than I do. And I am not going to act as though this is something only affecting me and the neighborhood I live in. I know this has been going on for years, that I am lucky to have avoided it so long, that other people, specifically people of color, have it worse. I know that I am partially to blame. But fuck, man. My house is shaking and the only thing I have to look ahead to is an ugly new building going up on my block. Assuming I can still afford to live here.

So thank you for taking the time to answer my phone calls today, for speaking with the contractors about my complaints, and for saying that you “understand and feel for what I am going through.” Thank you, in short, for attempting to placate me. But just so you know, I think you, and all the people doing what you are doing in the name of personal enrichment, are assholes. I think you are all destroying this city. This city that gets slightly less awesome with every single personality-less building that clutters the skyline. And by the way, it has been more than 45 minutes and my house is still shaking.

Sincerely,

Rebekah

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“Well he doesn’t live in Afghanistan. Like me.”

15 Oct

You know that thing that people always say to kids who don’t want to finish all the food on their plate? You know,

“eat all those peas because there are kids starving in (insert name of country that currently brings to mind deprivation here).”

I mean, to be entirely honest with you, it would be just as accurate, and probably more meaningful, to say something like,

“eat all those peas because there are kids starving down the block only you likely won’t ever be faced with it because we do a really good job of hiding our poverty problem in plain sight and then pointing a judgemental finger at others.”

I mean, what a truly ridiculous thing to say to children. To make them feel as though by not finishing all the food on their plates they are at most contributing to, and at least complicit in, the starvation and suffering of their peers the world over. I mean, obviously wasting food is not a good thing and we should appreciate what we have from a young age, but everyone knows pretty much everything (except fried food) tastes better the next day anyway and Little Sally’s pea consumption, or lack thereof, has nothing to do with inequality in food access. It actually would make more sense to draw a parallel between the effects on food production caused by changes in climate which is a direct result of our overconsumption of fossil fuels and the methane gas emissions of our industrial agriculture than some little kid forgoing the overcooked veggies on her plate. But I digress.

The reason that I bring this is up is that there is this thing that happens on the Internet and In Real Life that drives me absolutely bananas. So let’s say you go on your Facebook page or Twitter feed and you say something like

“Ugh I got shat on by another bird. Worst day ever.”

And then someone writes you back and is like,

“Well if that’s your worst day then consider yourself lucky. You could be getting bombed in Gaza.”

or some shit. And it’s like, fuck, now I feel kind of bad because you’re right, it would be way worse to be bombed in Gaza, or anywhere really, than to be shat on by a bird. But at the same time it’s like, no, fuck you, I was obviously being fascitious and really, what the fuck does one thing even have to do with the other?! Nothing! Nothing at all! And also, there is no way for me to be bombed in Gaza because I am here in Brooklyn. So, if we’re being accurate, I actually couldn’t be bombed in Gaza. Just like wasted peas will not change someone else’s access to a nutritious meal, my feeling negatively about being shat on does not mean I am incapable of feeling negatively about other things at the same time. I can be mad about my own experience with bird shit and simultaneously be mad about people living in fear of aerial bombings. The brain is magical.

So I remember when Michael Brown was murdered and a lot of people were, rightfully, posting links to articles about it. The people in my circle by and large were appalled and there were lots of exchanges about institutionalized and systemic racism and a renewed hope that maybe by blowing the lid open on the fact that racism is endemic in the United States we could really get to the process of addressing it, having a real, honest and hurtful nationwide conversation about racism and its implications, and maybe, just maybe, move in the direction of change. Meanwhile, some kid posted an article about Syria and was like,

“All this talk about Michael Brown and no one cares about what is happening in Syria right now.”

And it’s like, I’m sorry, what?! Because the fact that we care about this tragedy necessarily means that we can’t simultaneously care about that one? It’s like Jesus fucking Christ, man! What in the world is wrong with you?! So, what? You’re going to go to Ferguson and tell the parents of Michael Brown that what happened to their son was terrible but, hey, what about the implications of our drug war in Mexico? I mean seriously. Go fuck yourself. There are terrible things that happen in the world all the time. Sometimes those things happen to us and people we know and sometimes they don’t. We cannot possibly engage with all the horrible all the time because it would eat us alive. Believe me, I have tried my damnedest. But also, that there are worse things happening to other people doesn’t mean that the shitty things that happen to us are any less real. Losing someone in a car accident is not any less painful because we are in the middle of an epidemic of gun violence. Those things are simply not connected. Our pain is our pain, our experience is our experience. Plain and simple.

I bring this up because the other day at work some random drunk woman (British, blonde, middle-aged; this is relevant, I swear) commented that someone looked angry. I said he wasn’t angry. Just having a rough week. And she looks at me and she says, and this is a direct quote,

“Well he could live in Afghanistan. Like me.”

My brain basically exploded. I stared at her for slightly longer than was comfortable and I walked away. Obviously I have been thinking about this nonstop since it happened. If I had a chance to speak with her again, this is what I would say…give or take:

You are a self-righteous asshole. I am sure that you have seen plenty of terrible things, but that does not diminish the impacts of the things that happen to others in their day-to-day lives. Loss, physical pain, anger, loneliness, heartache and yes, even happiness do not cease to exist because there are injustices happening elsewhere in the world. There is not a finite amount of feelings that exist, like by feeling happy about one thing means that you necessarily have less anger to feel about another. And if someone has a shit day then they have a shit fucking day, regardless of how shitty someone else’s might have been. That is honestly neither here nor there. And, besides, last I checked you were sitting at my bar with your girlfriends on a Saturday night getting wasted off Kettle 1 and sodas. I am sure that what you do, things you have been exposed to, have been difficult but the fact of the matter is that you get a week off. And in that week off, maybe don’t shame people about their lives. Because honestly, the best way to get people to stop listening to you, to stop wanting to learn, is to behave exactly the way you behaved. Talk to people, not down to them. You are not better than anyone else.

Obviously I didn’t say any of that but hopefully someone will, in real time, and much more articulately than I could manage even with 5 days of thought going into it.

Tags: , , , ,

Donald Trump is kind of our fault

5 Oct

I have actually written about Donald Trump on this blog not once, but twice. The first time was right after he tweeted that Kate Middleton shouldn’t be sunbathing in the nude and that she only had herself to blame” for the photos that spread like wildfire on the internet. What he forget to mention, of course, was the fact that she and Prince William were at some super secluded chalet somewhere in the woods and some asshole paparazzi with a crazy telephoto lens took her photograph from so far away that she would have appeared more like a spot in the distance to the unaided eye rather than someone flaunting her nudity for the world to see. That’s basically the same thing as if a Peeping Tom who took a woman’s photo while she was in the shower through her curtains using some sort of crazy perv camera and then saying that maybe if that woman had purchased curtains that were impenetrable by x-ray beams then she wouldn’t have had her photo taken and so basically it was her fault. Not the dude who bought the camera. No, of course not. But the woman who did not protect herself from every potential breach of privacy regardless the likelihood. I also would like to say for the record that women, and men for that matter, should be able to sunbathe nude with the reasonable expectation that no one photographs them and then distributes said photographs to “news” organizations. Also, to take it one step further, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but if these organizations would stop being dicks and refuse to purchase nonconsensual nude photos then maybe assholes like the photographer in this story wouldn’t purchase cameras with telephoto lenses, or whatever they are called, to steal images of people. A girl can dream.

The second post I wrote was 2 days later on the same topic only this time Trump made it worse.  He was able to make it worse because Fox “News” invited him onto “Fox and Friends” to elaborate on his tweet because obviously 140 characters worth of misogyny was not nearly enough. He made sure to tell people that obviously he liked Kate Middleton (which I am sure made her feel oodles better because anyone who is anyone wants Donald Trump to think favorably of them) but went on to say that exposing yourself when famous is just asking for trouble because if someone stands to make money off of your nudity then of course that’s precisely what they should do. Not, you know, be a decent human being. And then to make matters worse he commented on how someone had posted a picture of Prince Harry’s dick online and rather than be consistent and be like “well it’s his own fault for exposing himself” he said that Harry’s security detail fucked up. Photos of a naked female? The woman’s fault. Photos of a naked man? His security detail.

So anyway, when I wrote about Donald Trump the other two times it was like, ugh, why won’t this clown shut the fuck up?! And now? A few years later? Dude is leading in the presidential polls! Where are we living? Opposite land?! And it’s like, I really don’t want to give him any more credibility by taking him seriously enough to even write about him (even though not many people read this blog but whatever) but I am just so dumbfounded. Like, for real. This shit is bonkers.

So I just got back from traveling through Vietnam, Laos and Thailand with my friend Carrie and during our trip numerous people, finding out that I am American, asked me what the deal was with Donald Trump. And I mean, how do you even answer a question like that? Because what IS the deal? So far what he has done is insult practically everyone, make a mockery of our political system and reawaken all the rabidly racist, sexist, antisemitic groups in this country all while taking absolutely zero responsibility for the impacts of his words. I mean, seriously, the person leading the polls is someone who refers to himself as The Donald. THE DONALD! WHAT IS THAT?! It’s like, fuck! We have this guy who is all on about his money and whatever and he has filed for bankruptcy like 100 times. And he makes duck face always. And his hair is stupid. And he is still angry about something (entirely accurate) that Rosie O’Donnell said in 2006. I mean, imagine this dude as president. Actually, maybe don’t because I just did and it made me really sad. Also, angry.

I just don’t understand how this dude has said and done all the fucked up shit that he has said and done and he is still relevant. Actually relevant! He released both Lindsey Graham and Jorge Ramos’ private cell phone numbers; he said John McCain is not a war hero; he made lame ass comments about Megyn Kelly’s period; and, just, his hair. And while I am on about his hair, I am just going to copy/paste this quote from Vanity Fair here:

“In this 2002 photograph, Trump has changed his hair color to ‘Burnt-Cheetos Auburn.’ As well, the conventional hairsprays and salon products of years past appear to have given way to rubber cement and snot.”

I don’t know. I know that for a time, and maybe even still right now, some people thought this whole thing was funny. But it wasn’t funny, it isn’t funny, and it won’t even be funny when a few years in the future we look back and say, “hey, remember that time that poor excuse for a human being ran for president and actually led the polls for kind of a while?” Cuz the way I see it, this is just emblematic of the fact that our country is very sick. Very, very sick. I mean, look at what is happening. We have people shooting up schools, churches, parking lots and movie theaters damned near every day. We can’t pass meaningful gun control policy after a bunch of kindergardeners were murdered and a racist fuck opened fire in a church during worship. We have a somewhat sizeable portion of the population that still believes, despite the presence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that our president was not born here. We have a bunch of overpaid white dudes trying to defund a woman’s health organization because they want to legislate what happens inside of our bodies and they simultaneously want government to mind its own business. We have some asshole raising the price on AIDS medication because his personal enrichment matters more than the lives of millions of people worldwide. I could continue but it’s just too damn early and shit is too damn fucked up.

Shit is bad. People keep saying that we will reach some sort of breaking point but I just don’t even know. We refuse to deal with the institutionalized problems within our country that keep the status quo. And we refuse to acknowledge that the American Dream is becoming less and less real and trying to “Make America Great Again,” as fucking Donald Trump says, is going to do absolute shit if all we care about is money and keeping the disempowered where they are. Donald Trump’s ascension, and his staying power, is significantly less surprising when we take the state of our country into account and realize that our population is kept intentionally ignorant about the reality of our political situation and that the lives of anyone other than the rich and famous are simply unimportant. It is all a game of being the coolest kid on the block and, unfortunately, some dude who regularly launches ad hominem attacks from his Twitter account is in the lead. This isn’t funny. It’s fucked.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Tip #14 on Being a Good Bar Customer

2 Sep

It has been well over a year but the tips are back! If you have forgotten about all of the other past tips because it has been ages, you can catch up with them by clicking on these handy little links! Here they are: Tip#1, Tip#2, Tip #3, Tip #4, Tip #5, Tip#6, Tip #7, Tip #8, Tip #9, Tip#10, Tip #11, Tip #12 and Tip #13. That took a really long time. Anyway, here is your tip for today:

Please, oh please, do not leave your house with only an American Express card. Especially in Brooklyn. Where a whole lot of places either don’t accept AmEx or are cash only. It is super annoying when I make you a drink and then tell you the price and you hand me an AmEx and then when I tell you that the bar I am working in doesn’t take AmEx you look at me as if you have never heard such a thing before. As if it isn’t a well-known fact that more places accept fucking Discover cards than AmEx and no one even has Discover cards. Except for my friend Katy. She has one. Katy? Are you reading this? Do you still have a Discover? Anyway, listen, I get it. I love my AmEx card, too. It gives me points towards free flights on JetBlue (whose Twitter account I had a short-lived love affair with), the customer service is fantastic, and they, unlike stupid Bank of America, will wire you money to a Western Union in Guatemala if your wallet happens to get stolen on a bus transfer! The thing about AmEx, though, is that the fees that they charge in order to process the card or whatever can be problematic for smaller businesses. Especially in this day and age when people run their cards for every individual round that they order like big, inconsiderate assholes. I have two stories!

Story #1:

This happened over this past winter so I might be slightly hazy on all the details. So this girl walks in and orders a Macallan 12 neat.  I have to say I was rather impressed! It’s not that often that a young woman in her 20s walks into a bar alone and orders a scotch. I poured the drink and let her know that it would be $12. She goes into the credit card section of her wallet and I say,

Oh, I’m sorry, we actually have a $20 card minimum but there’s an ATM in the back if you want to go take out some cash. Otherwise I am happy to hold the card and run you a tab.

Her response?

Ugh. (With the accompanying cliche over exaggerated eye roll. She failed to hand over her card and I was so put off by the “UUUGGGHHHH!!!” that I figured I should just leave her be)

So let me ask you this, dear readers. If a bartender said to you what I said, and you supposedly only had an AmEx card, wouldn’t you then say,

Do you accept American Express?

Personally, I always ask if people accept AmEx before I give it to them. Of course, I work in service and so credit card minimums and what cards are and are not accepted is always a consideration for me. I don’t expect everyone to think that way. But like, if there is some sort of regulation around cash usage, it would make sense, one would think, to then ask relevant follow-up questions. But did she? No, no she didn’t. She smuggly sat and drank her Macallan (which at this point I was mad about rather than impressed by), read her stupid book (it wasn’t actually stupid) and occasionally texted on her iPhone. Then she ordered another drink. And then she did it. She handed me an American Express. Of fucking course. So I said,

I’m sorry, do you have anything else? We actually don’t accept American Express here.

To which she said,

No! That’s my only card!

And then I looked at the card and realized it wasn’t even her fucking card! It was some dude’s card! Probably her dad’s because she was young, and white, and drinking Macallan 12 so I (perhaps erroneously) assumed that she was a trust-fund baby and her dad was paying her rent. And then I thought maybe it wasn’t her actual dad but like her sugar dad and since she had his card she was drinking the good stuff. And then I thought oh, what if she stole it? I cannot run this card under any circumstance. And then I looked down at her wallet which was lying open on the bar and wouldn’t you know it, she had other cards. Other cards that we accepted. Other cards with her name on them (I was hoping and also planning on checking her ID). And so I said,

Not to be a snoop or whatever, but what about those cards there in your wallet? (BUSTED!)

And she said,

Ugh! (Another eye roll!)

And then she grabbed a card out of her wallet, stormed over to the ATM and took out some cash, paid me and stormed out because I had obviously ruined her life. She made this clear by not tipping me. Whatever.

Story #2:

This happened way more recently. It was a Saturday night and I had just taken over the bar from my co-worker who is awesome and I love him. Any of you who have worked in service know that sometimes things get a little wonky at the change over. There is money being counted, tabs being transferred, tips being sorted, explanations about open checks and the temperment of customers being discussed. During this time my co-worker accidentally accepted an AmEx card to start a tab and didn’t realize it until the dude who gave it to him had sat down at a table. But whatever, it has happened before and all we do is when the person comes up to pay their bill we say,

You know, I made a mistake and took your AmEx card when we actually don’t accept them. Would you mind trading it out for a different one?

99.9999% of the time the person is like,

Yea, sure, no problem, whatever, shit happens. (Or some portion of that)

And then everything is great and we talk about how AmEx really ought to lower their fees and I tell them about the time I got a free roundtrip flight to San Francisco using my points and how it was one of my crowning achievements and so I totally understand why they would want to use their AmEx. Obviously though this dude was a member of the 0.0001% who is an asshole and is incapable of understanding the fact that sometimes people make mistakes. This is how it went down:

Me: You know, my coworker in the confusion of the shift changeover accepted your AmEx but we actually don’t take them. Do you have something else?
Asshat: No. I don’t.

I would like to just interject that he was holding cash in his hand at that very moment.

Me (looking at the very visible cash that happened to include at least one $20): Well, your bill is only $15. Do you have cash maybe?
Asshat (after glancing at the cash in his hand and making absolutely no effort to hide it): No.
Me: o_O
Asshat: Well, why the hell did you accept the card if you can’t run it?
Me: Because it was a mistake? And sometimes people make them?
Asshat: Well, if you can take it you can run it.
Me: That’s not how it works, actually, but let me get this straight. You left your house with nothing but an American Express card. No cash at all, not even a $20 (looking at the $20). No ATM card. No ID that you can leave here so you can pay the tab later. Just your American Express card.
Asshat: Yes. And my keys.

This went on for quite some time. Eventually I got so frustrated that I said,

You know what, just forget it. I don’t even care. Just go.

I then shot fire out of my ears and nose and singed his stupid, smug eyebrows and melted his fucking Gold Card (the part about the fire is a lie but if looks could singe, ya know?).

Fast forward a month. Saturday night. Post shift change. In walks Mr. I only have an AmEx card, no cash, even though I am holding cash in my hand while I tell you I have none because I am a dick.

Me: Hello. (Again shooting fire from nose and ears only not really)
Asshat: Let me get a Jack and ginger and a margarita.
Me: Before I make you those drinks I have to let you know what we do not accept American Express. Just to clear up any confusion. Also, you didn’t pay for your drinks last time so if you could tip on that round that would be great.
Asshat: Well, someone took my AmEx card and then someone else told me that they couldn’t run it. Why did someone accept it if they couldn’t run it?
Me: Because, as I explained last time, people make mistakes. Maybe you don’t. But other people do.
Asshat: Well, to my credit I was a little bit drunk last time.

This, again, went on for awhile. I didn’t have the energy to explain to him that being drunk is not an excuse for being a lying dickhead. I served him his drinks, took the non-AmEx card he gave me and decided to just give him another chance. Besides, he was moving to LA sometime the following week and so I would never have to deal with him again. Hooray for me! Hooray for life! Anyway, yadda, yadda, yadda he had a bunch of drinks, started a fight with someone much bigger than him over the bathrooms and got his ass kicked.

Moral of the story: don’t give a bartender your AmEx and then be an asshole about it because you will, a month later and in a completely unrelated incident, end up with a bloody nose in front of that very same bartender who doesn’t feel the least bit bad about it because you’re rude. The end.

Goodbye Forever, Box

30 Aug

At some point during the life span of this blog I wrote about how the state of my room (AKA a mess assessment….amessment? Yes? No?) was a clear reflection of how things in my life were going. And, actually, perhaps more to the point it was, is, a reflection of how things in my head are going. I don’t mean that in any big way, really. I am a relatively even keeled person. I would say that on a happy-to-sad spectrum I generally reside closer to the former than the latter, with some forays into sadness and a vacation home in anger and disbelief. I would categorize myself as my friend Ashlie described herself, a loud introvert. I had never really heard that term before but the second it came out of Ashlie’s mouth I thought to myself,

yes, that’s me.

Anyway, my room. Ask anyone who knows me well and they will tell you: my room is always a little bit of a disaster. In college a pile of clothes would migrate from my bed to my desk chair and back again depending on which of those things I needed at the moment. As I’ve gotten older I’ve been better about putting my clothes away (although truth be told a bag of clean laundry sits outside the door of my bedroom because I haven’t felt like dealing with it) but still the clutter remains. Shoes litter the floor, piles of New Yorker magazines reside on my desk and coffee table, unopened mail with personal data lies unopened, awaiting an afternoon of shredding. For years my awesome ex-boyfriend kept my mess, and my mood, in check but since he moved away about a year and a half ago things have gotten progressively messier. Both in my head and in my room. I stopped doing the things I have always done by sheer force of will, desire and habit: writing and running. I started keeping to myself more, seeing friends less, allowing my room to become an embarrassing disaster. The worst of it all was The Box.

You see a few years ago me and my roommates, boyfriend included!, moved from the second floor to the third. My landlord was redoing the apartments and the girls upstairs had moved out so we took over the newly renovated space. We all sort of haphazardly packed up our things and carried them up the single flight of stairs to restart our lives in a slightly better version of the place we had been living in for years. At the end of the packing process, I threw a bunch of odds and ends into a big box, figuring I would unpack it and put the things away. That was years ago. The box has remained packed, if you can even call it that, since 2012. Every time I went to deal with it I would be overcome with anxiety. Where does all of this stuff go? What do I do with it? How do I organize it? I would inevitably throw everything back in the box and head out for a run in an attempt to refocus and have another go when I got back. I never had another go. The Box stayed. And then, last week, I had enough. I came into my room with the intention of going through the box, organizing things, putting things in rightful places, feeling accomplished and like having The Box take up this huge swathe of space in my room, and my brain, for the past forever actually had some purpose. Like it wasn’t all for naught. I stood in front of The Box, looked inside, and simply said

Fuck it. Fuck you, Box. I hate you.

I got the garbage can and simply threw everything away.* I threw away the old articles from grad school. The weird candle holders I never used. The picture frames I bought at Bed&Bath in 2002 (saved the photos, though). The broken jewelry. The notebooks. All of that shit that has been causing me anxiety for all this time just gone. I took the garbage out, went back to my room, changed into running clothes and went out for the first run I have wanted to go on for as long as I can remember. And I started thinking about my next blog and my next marathon.

It’s been a long and sad road this past year and a half. And it’s crazy how you don’t even realize you’re on it until one day, you just make a turn and all of a sudden the fog sort of lifts. One day you just go into your room and you tackle some seemingly small project that is somehow the physical manifestation of all of the shit that has beaten you down over the past 19 months and you look outside and the sun is shining and rather than forcing yourself to go out there you want to do it. It’s a crazy thing and I don’t know what did it but whatever it is, fuck am I grateful because this shit — the sadness, the anxiety, the overwhelming feeling that I have been letting everyone down, myself more than anyone else — was getting tired. And was starting to make me feel like I had made some turn away from my old bright self into someone far more muted, someone about ready to burst into tears without reason or warning at any moment. I thought I was the only one who noticed but apparently I was wrong.

A few weeks ago, after visiting my parents for the night, I received the following text message from my father:

Hi, glad you came out yesterday. I missed you. I have to say I am a little worried about you. Seeing you made it easier. I hope you can use this trip as a reassessment period to come back and just be happier. Anything I can do to help let me know. I love you.

And so to my dad and everyone else: I am back. The Box is gone. And now I am going to go out into the world because I want to. And see my friends who I love. And get ready for an awesome fucking adventure through Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. And then, who knows. But I think it will probably be great.

*To be fair I recycled some of it but I felt like that took away some of the drama.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

The Great Realization

25 Aug

This past Friday night following a shift at work I arrived home to find blood on my desk. Obviously I freaked out because it was a clear indication that something was wrong with one of my cats. I immediately, and correctly as it turned out, figured it was Grete. She had been acting a little bit weird the past few weeks. She’s always been kind of a brat – waking me up in the morning by head butting me in a desperate attempt to get under the covers and knead me with her dagger-like claws and pissing on the floor right in front of the door to my bedroom if I didn’t feed her the second she started her dinnertime siren call – but she had never been overly vindictive. That is until a month or two ago when she decided to pee on my bed. That is the ultimate sign of feline displeasure. I will be the first to admit that there have been times when I have been remiss in my duties as a kitty mom. At that time, though, I’d been on top of it. So, what the fuck? I figured maybe something was wrong so I decided to take the two of them into the vet for their annual check-up (they get better health care than I do) and just see if maybe, just maybe, there was something beyond general cat-assiness that caused the problem. The vet seemed to think everything was okay. Great. I had an asshole on my hands.

Fast forward to the past week when I started noticing little dribbles of pee around the room. I started to feel like I was playing a game of whack-a-mole. You know, every time I would mop and then spot-clean the floor another dribble would appear. I started to get concerned. And then there was the blood. Clearly that was the last straw. Had to make an emergency appointment. So on Saturday morning at about 10, after sleeping barely at all following what amounted to a 16-hour bar shift between two places, I called the vet and made an appointment. And then I had to get Grete into her carrier. Have you ever tried putting a cat into a carrier? It is no easy task. It’s like they grow extra legs at every possible angle and use all those legs, and the claws that come with them, to forcibly keep themselves from being lowered into the chamber of doom. And then once you finally get them in there the yowling starts.

MEEEEOOOWWWWWW!!!!!!!! RRRAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

It’s horrifying. It’s the sound that I imagine a whale would make if it was experiencing a slow and painful death. It would actually be funny if it didn’t make you ears bleed. (Okay, nevermind, it’s funny.) Anyway, I walked my screaming cat half a block down to the vet (bless you, convenience!) and checked her in at the desk. I then put her carrier down on one of the chairs in the waiting room and tried to distance myself. By this point she decided that yowling wasn’t working and thought that perhaps making sounds in a desperate attempt to evoke pity from me would be a more effective technique.

Roooooooooooooooo…… roooooooooooooooooo.

She has it down. At this point I noticed another lady in the room who was alternatively looking at me judgmentally (she had her carrier on her lap and was whispering through the grates to her noticeably silent cat) and then glancing at the carrier that housed Grete with a great deal of pity and concern. Obviously I must be a terrible cat mom since I was standing 5 feet away, giggling to myself. I looked at the lady and said

“She is very dramatic.”

At this point the lady realized I had a heart afterall and asked me what was wrong with my cat.

Lady: Just a check-up?
Me: No, an emergency appointment. (I realized right after I said it that this probably did not make her feel better about my relaxed stance.)
Lady: Oh! Bless her heart!
Me: I think she’s okay. I mean, she’s eating and drinking the normal amount. Has energy. There was just a little blood this morning so I think maybe she has a UTI or something like that.
Lady: Bless her.

At this point, two younger women came in with their cat which they set down on a chair in between where they both were sitting. They took turns clicking lovingly at her. Then one of them looked over at my carrier where Grete was now alternating noises.

MEEEEEEOOOOOWWWWW!!!! Roooooooo………..

I looked at them and I said

“She’s fine. I swear. Just dramatic. Tough to be a kitty, you know.”

Then, this.

Young Lady: Oh, she sounds just like Maddie! This is Maddie. (She gestured at the carrier.) Her name is Madison, actually, but we call her Maddie for short. Oh your cat is just beautiful. A tabby?
Me: Um…yea?
Young Lady: So cute. (Addressing who I assumed was her partner) Doesn’t she sound just like Maddie? I keep hearing her and thinking Maddie is throwing her meow! But she isn’t! It is a completely different cat!

At this point Grete and I got called into the office. I quickly smiled around the room, accepted the well wishes and the “bless hers,” walked into the exam room and explained to the vet tech what had been going on in my house the past few weeks. A few minutes later the vet came in, asked some more questions, did some feel tests and said it was likely a UTI, as I had suspected. We left the office $150 poorer and with a prescription for Clavamox. After dropping my still yowling and slightly traumatized kitty at home, I went to run some errands. During the errands I got to thinking about my experience in the vet office and I had a realization: I am not a cat lady.

Okay, so as a back story, when I adopted my cats over 4 years ago (I have two of them), my mother and I had a very serious (okay only sort of serious) conversation about what it takes to turn into a cat lady. At what number of cats is this an inevitability? We came to the conclusion that you could have up to three cats but once you found yourself at four and up you were basically screwed. I told my mom, at this point in all seriousness, to cut me off at three. We made it sort of a rule: over three, definite cat lady; under three, not so much. We did not, however, discuss the incidence of cat lady-ness at under three cats. It never really came up. I trusted in the fact that I was not a cat lady because I had under three cats, but perhaps there is more to it. Can one, without having an absurd number of felines, actually be a cat lady? I have a lot of thinking to do.

PS Grete is fine. Antibiotics are really something.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

You’re Not Actually Jewish

17 Aug

The other day after working a night shift at my bar I decided to fulfill a promise I had made to someone. I decided to do the thing that I very rarely do now that I drive to and from work: I stopped in somewhere for a nightcap. The reason I did it is quite simple. The guy who owns the bar I popped into works behind it on Friday and Saturday nights and occasionally comes into my daytime spot to have a sandwich before going up the hill to do his ordering, or whatever he does. The sandwich costs $12 or $13, depending on what he gets. He pays with a $20 bill and leaves the change. I am of the mindset that tip karma is a thing and so I figured it was my responsibility as a bartender to return the favor. See, that’s how it used to be back in the day. (And still is, among a certain set.) Bartenders would go out and visit their friends at work and drop money on them with the understanding that those friends would, at some point, return the favor. I think that’s a nice thing and so I do my best to remember who visits me and visit them when possible, keeping my wallet and my liver in mind of course. So on this Saturday night, after getting out of work slightly earlier than usual, I decided to go return the favor and drop some money on this dude.

I walked through the door at about 3:45 to a more or less empty bar. Perfect. If I had seen the dozen or so people that are apparently usually there on a weekend night at that time I likely would have kept driving because the last thing I want to do after working a busy bar all night is go and hang out in a busy(ish) bar. No thank you. So I walked in, took my seat by the door, and ordered a single pour of Don Julio and soda in a pint glass. I figured the more hydration the better. For some reason, and I am not entirely sure how this even happened, the conversation at the bar turned to everyone trying to figure out where I am from. Not like where I grew up – New Jersey all the way! – but where my family came from. And, as usual, the answer was shocking to people. I am Russian and Irish and Jewish. Apparently I look everything but those things and so it always becomes a longer conversation than I necessarily want to have. Such is the life of being an Irish, Russian Jew with long, dark, wavy hair and a good tan. At some point the dude sitting at the bar who had not just come from work and was therefore significantly less sober than I was asked me if it was my mother or father that was Jewish. I knew exactly where this line of questioning was leading and so I said what I always do:

My mom converted to Judaism before my older brother was born.

“Well,” he said, “then according to Jewish law you’re not actually Jewish.”

Ugh.

This happens more often than you might think and it drives me up a fucking wall. The first thing is that I identify much more closely with my Judaism than with the fact that my long ago ancestors came to the United States from Ireland and Russia. I have never been to either of those places, I do not speak Russian or Gaelic, I know virtually nothing about the history of either of those countries outside of potatoes and the crumbling of the Soviet Union (okay I might know a little more than just that but for sake of argument let’s go with it), and my name is Rebekah Esther. Rebekah Esther, for crying out loud! That shit is no joke! It’s double Old Testament! Also, I was Bat Mitzvah’d. I always try to ask the people who try and take my identity from me, whether or not they were Bar or Bat Mitzvah’d. The answer is usually no. I don’t know what that means exactly but it means something. Maybe they feel not so Jewish and so they’re like, whatever, that bitch’s mom wasn’t born Jewish so she is even less a Jew than I am!

On a more serious note, though, this plays into the world of identity politics. Listen, I know that I live in New York City and that some people call it Jew York City. We are everywhere. I am safe here. How I identify religiously and ethnically, because I think of Judaism as being more than a religion, does not put me in danger. But how dare someone try and take my identity from me. How dare they tell me that the way that I think of myself, the way that I go through the world, is actually technically not correct. I am not co-opting something that I have no right to co-opt. I was raised by two Jewish parents. I went to Hebrew School. I recited from the Torah at my synagogue. No, I am not the most religious kid in town but I take pride in my background. It is something that, in whatever way, has shaped the person that I am and the ways in which I go through the world. Do not take that from me.

And then it got me thinking just in the bigger sense: what right does anyone have to take someone’s identity from them? I have friends who do not identify within the gender binary and that, in many places (New York City included) is not always safe. But they do it because it is how they think of themselves and how they interact with the world around them. It is not a choice, it is a matter of fact and it is really nobody’s right or business to question that. And I have friends who are biracial who have people tell them that how they identify, how they were raised, who there parents are does not matter because they don’t look or sound or act black or white or Asian or whatever. As if there is one way to look or sound or act. And it’s like, fuck, how presumptuous some people are. And how violent it is to tell someone who they are because you think that it is your right or responsibility or something. My Jewishness is not any less valid because my mother was raised as an Irish Catholic (sort of). She converted because she liked the inclusiveness of Judaism and the fluidity of it. She chose to be Jewish and she and my father chose to raise us in a (some what) Jewish household. My Judaism matters to me so, drunk dude at the bar at 4:15, don’t act like you have any power over it or me.

Instead of all of that, though, I just looked at him, rolled my eyes and said, as my friend Ben would,

Mind your business.

And maybe we should all just do that more. We should all just mind our business. We should mind our business about other people’s religion, race, gender identity, weight, ability, and everything else. People navigate the world with a specific level or engagement with their past. Not only with their personal lived experience but the experience of those in their family who came before. And no one has the right to question that. Especially at a bar, after 4am, when you have no fucking clue what you’re on about. It’s rude. And I do not appreciate rude.

I Am Angry at the World Right Now and the Only Answer is Dirty Dancing

11 Aug

A few days ago a friend of mine who lives in another city messaged me that she had been held up at gun point before sundown a few blocks from her house, robbed and then hit on the left side of her head with the barrel of a presumably loaded gun. Standing behind the bar I tried my hardest to not allow my face to register the fact that my heart and my stomach had both crashed to the floor. I immediately went into response mode. Who of her friends can I track down, knowing that all her contact information was lost? What information can I gather without overstepping? How do I offer my support without allowing my fury to become overbearing? And how unreasonable is it for me to buy tickets and board a plane to where she is?

As the minutes and hours and days have passed by there is one thing that I keep coming back to. He held her up at gun point. He took her things. He had everything he wanted from her. And still, he hit her. She was not about to chase an armed man down the street. No money, credit card or cell phone is worth a life. She was terrified but thankfully unhurt. And then he hit her. I just don’t understand it. I just don’t understand what is so wrong in someone’s head that they would cause another human unnecessary harm. How do you look at someone in the face, see the terror in their eyes and lack even the smallest bit of decency. There was no danger to him. He was in charge. He had the power. And yet it still wasn’t enough.

So here’s the thing. I have gotten this far in my life generally believing that people are good. But as time goes on that belief gets harder and harder to hold onto. The certainty with which I once believed in basic human decency has eroded. And it’s not just this incident. It’s not just the glass I took to the face 6 months ago or the man who is wandering my neighborhood, attacking women between 4 and 6 am, causing me to walk down the middle of the street from my car to my apartment. It’s that it sort of feels like the world is falling apart and our humanity is the first to go. It’s that it feels as though every day it is something new, something horrifying, something inhuman.

I don’t know, you guys. Planet Earth has been a tough place the past few years. I remember back in late September, 2001, standing in the driveway with my mother wondering whether the world was going to still be around tomorrow. I remember telling her that I wasn’t sure I would ever have children because I didn’t think it was wise or safe or responsible to bring innocents into a world that felt so chaotic, unpredictable, dangerous and hate-filled. She told me that it always feels that way. That back when she was younger and John F. Kennedy was killed followed by Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy it seemed like anything could happen at any moment. That being good was dangerous and that darkness would eventually drown out the light. But time went on and life continued and good things do happen. And we can’t allow the evil to scare us from living the lives we want to live. But fuck is it hard.

It’s just that it all feels maybe a little bit hopeless sometimes. Well, right now it does. To me. Who are we that we behave like this? (I’m about to go on a super rant tangent so stay with me.) That we get so angry that we throw a glass at the face of someone half our size. That we, in broad daylight, rob someone and then hit them with a gun. That we are incapable of having a functioning national database of reported sexual assaults so we can protect women and men from the serial rapists that evade arrest because we are so fucking incapable of being realistic about the dominance and prevalence of rape culture. That black men and women are being killed by police and people still have the nerve to say this isn’t a racist society, that equal opportunity is a thing, that white privilege doesn’t exist. That some asshole American travels to Africa and kills a mother fucking lion because he can. That a woman runs a marathon on her period without wearing a tampon to raise awareness of the fact that women and girls all over the world lack access to necessary products. That people are fleeing their homes on rickety boats because they feel unsafe and are being turned away at the borders, if they even make it that far without the overcrowded vessels springing a leak and sinking. That Donald mother fucking Trump is somehow politically relevant and we think it’s funny but it isn’t funny because this is our fucking government and has everyone gone mad?!?

Okay, breath.

I just sometimes get really frustrated. I guess it’s that I really believe that if we would just open our eyes for a second and look around, like really look, and realize we aren’t the only people that exist that maybe things would be better. And I get it, we didn’t all grow up the same. We don’t all have the same world view. Inevitably there will be conflict. Everyone can’t get along all the time. But I do think we can all agree that we are all people. And then maybe we can take the next step and say we are all worth the same. That, no matter where we were born, what we look like, what we have, who our parents are, what cars we drive, what school we did or did not go to, that we share this space. And that the space isn’t getting any bigger, no matter how many poorly constructed bullshit high rise condos we throw up. And that money doesn’t actually matter. I mean, yea, it’s a necessary evil, but we invented it. It’s actually just paper that we assign value to by printing numbers using machines that we also invented. And some people have more than others. And for some, all of the money in the world isn’t enough. And sometimes, someone doesn’t have anything and they think you have something and they steal it from you. And that sucks, but it happens. But maybe, just maybe, they could steal the money and then not pistol whip you. I think maybe then the world would be ever-so-slightly better.

Or, maybe I should just rewatch Dirty Dancing and pretend that I don’t have the stiffest hips in the world and that I, too, could have an affair with the super sexy dance instructor and make him realize that he doesn’t have to go it alone. If you need me I will be in my room listening to Hungry Eyes on repeat.

Happy Birthday, Rebekah. BTW Everybody Hates You

21 Jul

So this past Sunday was my birthday. I ate a lot of cheese balls, drank my fair share of tequila and hung out with my friends. Who could ask for anything else, really? I consider myself lucky. Although my birthday ended with me hanging out, it started with me being where I so often am: behind a bar. I exist behind a bar these days it seems. Sometimes I feel like I get off work and I am so happy and then I blink my eyes and there I am again. Behind the bar. Feet hurting. Feeling this intense sensation of helplessness and lack of control over where I am. It’s like being in the worst class. For me that would probably be 11th grade chemistry which was taught by this guy we not-so-lovingly called Coach T who always called me Frank Rebekah when he did attendance as if anyone in the world has the last name Rebekah (find me that person, I dare you) even though he understood that everyone else’s name was listed as last name comma first name. He also told us about the time he was maced by some lady in the park under murky circumstances and he threw a chair at me. Two completely unrelated events, by the way. Admittedly, I pressed his buttons on purpose but, really, dude was a ticking time bomb. The lady who maced him apparently was walking her GIANT dog when he approached her and she still didn’t feel safe with him nearby. So, yea, needless to say it was not hard to piss him off and seem entirely innocent of any wrong doing. I was a total asshole back then. Anyway, the point is that sometimes at work I feel as though I am sitting through Coach T’s terrible fucking chemistry class over and over and over again and there is nothing I can do to stop it. And I don’t even hate bartending! I’m just a little worn out. And sometimes it feels, similarly to Coach T’s class, although I am in some alternate universe where my name actually is Frank Rebekah and nothing is as it always seemed.

So, back to the story. On Saturday night I was working a relatively busy shift at work. It was challenging, as it always is, but slightly less challenging than normal. You see one of the places I work at is frequented by a lot of very demanding people. And by demanding I mean they demand for me to acknowledge their reality that, regardless of how it might look to the untrained eye, they are in fact the only people in the room. I might look out and see 3 deep at the bar but that would be entirely incorrect. I am, in fact, standing in a room that is entirely empty except for this one person who wants me to “make a drink for a female” while I am running a credit card and pouring a beer. And, to be entirely honest, I still am not completely certain what “a drink for a female” really is. Like, I drink whisky or tequila on ice depending on the season and, last time I checked, which was just now in the shower, I am, in fact, a female. So it stands to reason that “a drink for a female” is some sort of liquor poured over ice and sipped through a teeny tiny straw (it’s for style). But that, apparently, is not correct. I don’t know. It’s confusing. Anywho, in order to relay their needs to me the people at this bar do a lot of yelling of the words “excuse me.” I hear the phrase “excuse me” on average like 150 times a night. And it’s not any of the excuse me’s that I normally use. Like,

(1) Excuse me but would you mind moving that chair over?
(2) Excuse me! Coming through!
(3) Aaaaaa-choooo! Excuse me!
(4) Excuse me? I think I missed that.
(5) Excuse me but is that your credit card on the floor?

No, it is none of those excuse me’s. It’s like “Ummm excuse me?! I have been standing here for 30 seconds and you haven’t acknowledged me so I am going to wave my hand in your face and when that doesn’t work I am going to poke you in the arm and then get angry when you politely ask me to not touch you.” It gets tiring after a while. Because as it turns out, using a phrase that is generally thought of as polite does not pardon the behavior that comes after. Or the tone of voice used to deliver the phrase. As I am sure you can imagine as the night goes on these constant excuse me’s become more and more trying.  And so in an effort to not entirely lose my mind, I try to stay business-like. I just listen to the order and make the drink and move on. No small talk, no jokes. Just drinks. I actually end up speaking very little beyond “Hi what can I get for you?,” “okay that’ll be $15. Card open or closed?,” and “thank you.” I try to use “thank you” as much as possible. I thought this was all very successful until Friday night this one dude told me he needed to talk to me about something. He wouldn’t tell me what it was about which left me feeling anxious all Saturday until I managed to get it out of him that night. After midnight. Which was technically my birthday. This is how it went:

Me: So what did you want to talk to me about?
Him: I don’t want to tell you right now
Me: Oh my god give me a break.
Him: Fine. Everyone thinks you’re a jerk and you walk around here like you own the place. They said you used to be so sweet and now you’re just a beast.
Me: (While reflecting on the fact that I am pretty sure I walk around there like I am trying to keep dudes from grabbing my ass) I’m sorry, what? A beast?
Him: Yea. They used to like you.
Me: They who?
Him: You know.

I didn’t know. And then I got really upset because who likes to hear that everyone hates you. On your birthday or otherwise! And then  I remembered that the last conversation I had with this guy went something like this:

Him: When are you going to let me eat your pussy?
Me: You are disgusting.

So I don’t know, maybe he was upset about that. But even still, what a dick move. Like, “happy birthday, I know you think you’re a good person but the reality is that you suck. SURPRISE!” And I thought about it and I realized, I don’t really care if everyone hates me. And I don’t even think it’s true that they do. I am fairly certain that the only people who hate me are the people who for whatever reason expect free drinks and then get really mad when I won’t give it to them. And besides, you try being nice when you are yelled at for like 4 hours straight. It is not easy. And it sort of bleeds into the rest of your life and makes you feel like maybe you’re the asshole. Like you wake up in the morning and you think,

“Man, am I the worst or is everyone else the worst?”

and the only people who really get it are the other people who also wake up feeling that way. Feeling like they are assholes who yell and that everyone hates them.  Anyway, so apparently according to this one guy, my anxiety was not misplaces. Everybody hates me. Happy birthday to me. Have some cheese balls.

Trauma is a Bitch

1 Jun

I feel as though I have been harping on this. As if it has occupied some unreasonable amount of space in my brain and my body. As if I have to apologize for referencing it, for talking about it, for allowing it to impact the way I do my job and live my life. I would say this is the last time I will bring it up here but I cannot say that for certain because I don’t know when, and if, it might come back to haunt my mind again. Trauma, as it turns out, is a strange and unpredictable thing. It winds its way into and throughout your body, it occupies the smallest crevices in your brain. It shows its face at the strangest times and leaves you standing on the street, silent tears streaming down your face, breathing through your racing heart, wondering why all the jokes you make about it can’t just force it to live in the past where it belongs. It makes you doubt your strength and your ability to will yourself to just move forward and leave that experience in the dust, a small annotation in a long life.

A few weeks ago I was informed by my coworker that the guy who physically assaulted me at work had come into the bar. Entirely unrelatedly, and by no intention of my own, I had spoken with him previously, and extremely briefly, over the phone. He told me he hoped we could move forward and become friends. I chuckled and told him not to be crazy, to take care of himself. I got off the phone and I felt good, in control, strong. I worked a shift behind the very bar where the incident occurred and then the next day I wrote him a letter. I knew he wasn’t going to read it, although I would be pleased if he did. It was just a means for me to tell him what I wanted him to know and to take back a little bit of my own power. The goal was to feel a little less helpless and it seemed like it worked. But then the news. I don’t know exactly how to put into words the feeling I got when I was told he had been in the bar the previous week. My hand immediately shot just above my left eye where there is still a pebble-sized calcification just below the skin that I find myself touching when I get nervous or uncomfortable. I looked at my friend in disbelief. My stomach dropped through the floor. I started sweating. I got the chills. So much for power and control. So much for thinking that a guy with a sizeable rap sheet who would throw a glass at the face of a girl who is half his size and two-thirds his age has even an ounce of self-control, has the capability of making reasonable decisions, gives a shit about his own future and his freedom. Joke’s on me, I guess. Seeing the best in a person is simply not possible when there is nothing good there. But beyond that I realized that I had been operating under the incorrect assumption that I was safe and that I was trusting the word of a man who I honestly believe to be a monster. He told his family he would stay away from the bar and me. He didn’t. And according to security he has tried to come into the bar when I’ve been there. Apparently booze tastes better when you get it from a place where you are unwelcome.

And then there was last night. I met up with a good friend of mine to just, I don’t know, catch-up, unload, destress. We went to our local spot which was oddly busy and, just as we decided to go somewhere better suited to our mood I heard it:  violent flesh-on-flesh contact. I grabbed my friend’s arm and just kept saying “oh god, oh god, oh god” until he headed into the mass of people trying to get the man who had struck the bartender out of the room. All of a sudden they were moving towards me. An angry, loud, testosterone-full group of people forcing the guy through the bar and out onto the street. I wedged myself between the bar and a stranger sitting on a barstool. A stranger whose sweatshirt hood I grabbed as I had visions of myself somehow being slammed into the bar or taking an errant elbow to the face. It wasn’t about me, had nothing to do with me, was likely not going to effect me and yet I couldn’t see how something like this couldn’t somehow drag me in. When I knew the coast was clear I fled through the door and leaned against the building, I concentrated on my breathing and willed my heart to just slow the fuck down. I felt weak and powerless. But even more acutely I felt like a self-indulgent asshole as I stood there having a panic attack over someone else’s experience and my proximity to it. Crazy, right?

I guess it’s just a weird thing to realize that sometimes being well-adjusted, self-reflective and emotionally even-keeled is simply not enough. And it’s infuriating to me to acknowledge that another person, a person who I actually don’t even really know and am afraid I might not recognize, has the ability to throw me into a complete and total tailspin in an entirely different neighborhood and in completely different circumstances without even doing anything. His actions didn’t change his psychology but they certainly altered mine. And then it gets me thinking about the trauma that other people deal with on the day-to-day. In the grand scheme of things, what I experienced was small potatoes. People live through wars, through violent attacks of all kinds, through fires, through abuse, through horrific accidents. I imagine those experiences creep up on them, too. Sometimes even randomly, on a Sunday night, in their own backyard. But that’s life, I guess. All we can hope to do is keep pushing forward, realize our feelings and emotions are important and worthwhile, take care of ourselves as best we can and when we can’t, reach out to others to take the pressure off. That’s what friends and family are for and I am eternally grateful for mine.

Here’s to hoping that this is the last post about this bullshit.

Tags: , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →